The Babbage diet: Six diet tips from our Science pages | The Economist

THIS newspaper prides itself on its readers' insatiable craving for accurate reporting and trenchant analysis. However, Babbage will concede that man cannot subsist on such an ethereal diet for long. And even if he could, sticking to it would doubtless prove nigh on impossible around this time of year, where enticing aromas of traditional Christmas fare waft hither and thither in homes all over the Western world whetting the less rarefied sort of appetite.

And yet, stick to it much of the Western world really should. According to the OECD one in six adults in its 33 mostly rich member countries is obese (measured as a body-mass index of 30 or more). And the problem is not confined to human beings. Pets, too, are getting chubbier. True, some scientists now believe that getting fat may be a mechanism that protects the body, and that the health problems associated with fatness may not be caused by it but be another consequence, another symptom, of overeating. But there is also plenty of scientific evidence to suggest that stuffing oneself silly leads not just to a less svelte silhouette, but to more profound problems like cancer.

It is hard to argue with Jamie Oliver, a celebrity chef and food campaigner, when he suggests in World in 2011, our sister publication, that the best way to face the future and tackle diet-related problems is to arm people with knowledge and skills. So, ever mindful of the physical, as well as intellectual, well-being of readers, Babbage has decided to compile some of the sage dietary advice The Economist has dished out over the course of the year.

1. Eat fish and no chips: Many researchers think that the shift away from omega-3 fatty acids found in fish to the omega-6 sort floating around in vegetable oils—and the change in brain chemistry that this causes—explains the growth over recent decades of depression, manic-depression, memory loss, schizophrenia and attention-deficit disorder. It may also be responsible for rising levels of obesity and thus the heart disease which often accompanies being overweight. Some scientists go so far as to suggest that an omega-3 acid was responsible for the existence of nervous systems in the first place, and that access to large quantities of the stuff was what permitted the evolution of big brains in mankind’s more recent ancestors.

2. Avoid eating late: Light regulates the body’s biological clock—priming an individual’s metabolism for predictable events such as meals and slumber. There is now evidence to suggest that, at least in nocturnal mice, eating out of whack with the circadian rhythm does indeed lead to increased weight gain. Mice and humans are physiologically alike, so a similar effect might be expected for people. Though since humans are diurnal creatures, it may be eating late at night, made possible by the spread of electric lamps, that does for our figures.

3. Drink lots of water: The first randomised controlled trial studying the link between water consumption and weight loss suggests that drinking water before meals does lead to weight loss, even controlling for the number of calories consumed during the day. And the effect seems to be long-lasting. Participants told to drink water during the trial tended to stick with the habit (apparently they like it). Strikingly, they have continued to lose weight, whereas the other participants have put it back on.

4. Think about what you eat: People who imagine themselves consuming a particular food eat less of the real thing when given the chance. For the effect to obtain, however, a person must imagine the whole laborious process of consumption. So, simply visualising a bowl of M&Ms will not do. One needs to think about picking the candies from the bowl, putting them in the mouth, chewing and swallowing them, one by one. What is more, the effect is food-specific; thinking about eating sweets will not temper one's appetite for cheese, say.

5. Don't diet: When served an unusually large slice of pizza, compared with what others appear to be getting, dieters treat this as a licence to pig out when the dessert comes. People who are not on a diet, meanwhile, actually appear to restrain themselves during the subsequent courses.

6. Finally, in the unlikely event that any reader should be planning to run a marathon on Christmas day (like the one organised in New York for the first time this year) here is how to calculate what to eat before the race and what pace to adopt to make it safely across the finish line.

If this were not enough to slake readers' hunger for food-related wisdom, there is plenty more about food and cooking, diet and nutrition, dieting and diet foods on our topic pages.

What does Babbage make of all this? Well, in a valiant effort to uphold The Economist's contrarian spirit, over the next few days he will gorge on meat, stay up late sipping wine (rather than water), and spend an inordinate amount of time thinking that he had eaten too much (certainly not imagining that next nibble). A crash diet will inexorably follow. No marathons are planned in the immediate future.

Photo credit:  JForth, via Flickr

via economist.com